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Below is the outline of the slides used in the lesson:

Confucius and the Warring States Period
Part One of a Four-Part Series on Classical China
The Cycles of Chinese History
The Mandate of Heaven
All history is cyclical (it moves in cycles or circles)
Recognizing those cycles will help you live within your own historical moment
The End of the Zhou Dynasty
Feudalism: King/Emperor owns all the land and gives it out to warrior/nobles who agree to support him financially and militarily
Gave the Emperor more central power and control
The danger comes when those local nobles break away—destroys the ruler's tax income and military power
Add to that nomadic invaders from the north—the Xiongnu

The Warring States Period
Absence of central political-military power—Power Vacuum
Shifting focus from rituals, manners, and learning towards warfare, violence, and conquest
Local "petty kings" fought for scraps of power
The Warring States Period
Shift from farming to fighting as the local, petty, kings forced farmers to participate in warfare or taxed them out of business
Confucius
Born into a Shi family in 551BCE
Frustrated by the lack of ritual, learning, and civility in his world
Warfare
Growing gaps between the rich and poor and lack of care for the poor
(Look for comparisons to Jesus and Buddha...)
Confucius' Philosophies
Placed an emphasis on learning
Meritocratic—one rises through one's learning and efforts, not through birth or marriage
Patriarchal
Confucius' Philosophies
"...he argued that these men...were superior not because of aristocratic birth but because of their education and training. Thus, superior men were made, not born. This meant that even a peasant could aspire to this exalted status [become a ruler]" (Stearns, 83).

Confucius' Philosophies
Five Relationships that Hold Us All Together
Father and son
Elder brother and younger brother
Husband and wife
Ruler and subject
Friend and Friend
Emphasized the family
Harmony within the group is more important than the individual's wants and needs
Confucius' Philosophies
The "Superior Man"—the Shi—is calm, educated, careful with his speech, polite, and always practices proper rituals
He is a moral example
He follows the Way of Heaven
Confucianism
Confucius wandered among the Warring States for his entire life and never found a ruler who would follow his teachings
He gathered many students who turned his philosophies into a "religion"—don't think about Christianity or another Western Religion
Taoism
Another teacher during the Warring States Period was Laozi
Little is known about him, and he may be a legend
Tao Te Ching
Ascetic Religion
Leave society
Live alone with barely enough to survive
Withdrawal into nature
Abandon the world and desire
Acceptance
Lesson Completed

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